QUOTE OF THE DAY (The author will post a shortened version of the most recommended comments of the day from various news outlets, as they relate to his Blog     NY Times, Op-Ed Columnist, BOB HERBERT, We Owe the Troops an Exit, August 30, 2010   Recommended by 38 Readers  Gemli Boston   “War is such a strange, anachronistic throwback to an earlier time.... It doesn't make sense in the modern world.”   DAVID ANDERSON'S BLOG   Weighing in on the origins of dangerous religious beliefs of   Osama bin Laden and Glenn Beck  and  Sarah Palin  and John Hagee     David Anderson www.InquiryAbraham.com   Lesprit351@AOL.com     "If He could instruct me to destroy the Infidel Amalekites who believe in other gods, I can destroy all those who believe in other gods .... If He could slew His enemies, I can destroy my enemies."      I am paraphrasing above and below from the Introduction of the revised edition of my   book The Infidels. (click here on title for description)     Three chapters from the book on the origins of radical Islam are available on request by download.   Say THREE CHAPTERS.  Email:   Lesprit351@AOL.com                    Ominous Echoes from Our Past   Why do we think the way we do? The early Greeks gave us the answer. There is an interaction that takes place between us and the god or gods we worship. They become like us and we become like them. This interaction is dynamic and all powerful. It follows that for Jews, Christians and Muslims, and not just for those at the extremes but for many others within the envelope of these religions, it is the god of the Hebrew Bible who reflects both their highest and their lowest thoughts and actions.    The recent flare-up between Islam and the West has brought to the surface an urgent question about the god of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is the most important of our time. It asks whether radical elements in the three Hebraic religions who believe in this god are leading us down a fiery path toward an Armageddon. It asks: Are they driving us toward a self fulfilling prophecy, that which their god predicted in ages past as the end of times?   To answer this question we are forced to dig deeply into the origins of these religions: Where did they come from? Who is this all powerful god? Why is He so powerful? How did He spell out our relationship to Him? How did He spell out our relationship to our planet?  How strong a power does He have over our thoughts actions?     The stakes are high. What Christians and Jews see before them as the Islamic threat is only the tip of the iceberg. There are deeper and more far reaching self destructive forces at play, all interconnected to their Abrahamic belief in this god. All three believe in the same Hebraic god. Christians and Jews must remember; Muhammad used a seventh century Jewish and Christian version of Yahweh as his template for Allah.   These self destructive forces are building at an alarming rate. Some of them are clearly visible; others are eating away under the surface of our awareness. Examples are; extremist factions in Islamist states taking control over advanced atomic weaponry and their desire to use it against what they see as a corrupted western civilization, an Israeli stockpile of atomic weaponry and Israel’s "never again" mindset, Christian religious extremists in the United States and their desire for a world wide battle with Islam.    That the three Abrahamic religions in their institutional form under the power of their god are failing to provide adequate guidance for the future of humanity is becoming increasingly clear. Moreover, in many ways this god of Abraham seems to be the major cause of the dilemma in which human civilization finds itself.   The inadequacy of this guidance is reflected in the inability of Jewish/Christian/Islamic society as a whole to face many of the societal challenges confronting it. There is a sense of Providential complacency, a lack of urgency. Two immediate challenges are: An ecological breakdown in large part caused by widely accepted apocalyptic belief among many. This end of times mindset is negating concern for the future of the planet. A world population explosion fueled by beginning and end of life issues being left to vague scriptural references in religious texts that work against any kind of concerted population control.      Many  of these Jews, Christians and Muslims are among the “privileged” who choose to remain oblivious to the profligate nature of their appetites. Some are on the far right of the political spectrum and actively fight against change. These individuals see themselves as an elite separated from the rest of society. They overwhelmingly benefit from their political and economic power over the earth’s recourses, oblivious to their disproportionate share of them. They turn their backs on the suffering of the disenfranchised billions living and dying on the margins of society.    Is it that Abrahamic religious belief has lost its relevance in the 21st Century, or worse yet, that it is providing the wrong guidance? Evidence is building pointing to the fact that Abrahamic religious belief is not only not providing the necessary guidance; it is providing the wrong guidance.   How strong is the influence on our society of this system of religious belief? It is very strong. 9/11 was proof of that, as was the American response. It is a fact; almost all geopolitical conflict today has a religious cause.     Religious institutions drum beat the vision of the Abrahamic god into the minds of believers. Jews, Christians and Muslims are reminded of Him every time they read from their Torah, Bible and Koran. Self enforcing rituals in each tradition add to this reinforcement. Today in the 21st century these images from the past remain as alive as they were when they were first formed. We deceive ourselves if we think this is not so. They work at the subconscious level in the minds of believers, entrapping them, patterning their thoughts, controlling their actions. Through a form of osmosis they work through the whole society, penetrating the minds of believers and non believers alike. No one escapes. Even those Christians, who pretend to worship a different kind of god in Jesus the Christ, are careful to place Jesus on the "right" hand of the Father GOD in their concept of the Trinity. It is this Father GOD, not Jesus, who reigns supreme.   Sumerian/Hebraic images first formed the persona of this god. They grew out of ancient myths and epic tales, passed orally from generation to generation among the tribes of the Nation of Israel and then recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. These images form the internal archetypal structure of Abrahamic religious belief. We can not escape.   They are our nemesis. From the very beginning of our history, they have led us into war with each other. They separate us by assuring each group of believers of its covenantal superiority. We are the Jacob; they are the Essau. We are favored by our God, they are hated. In an attempt to find a way around this seemingly intractable bind, some try for inter religious dialogue, but that does not work. Others take the atheistic view and say we do not need a God, but that too — as recent history so clearly proved in the cases of Naziism and Communism — can open us to unknown paths where we find no resolution. Either way, we find ourselves searching for a new and different basis for an understanding of ourselves and the world around us.     Without these Hebraic myths and the images that have grown out of them, the god of Judaism, Christianity and Islam would cease to exist in the form given Him. He would have to exist in some other form. These images from the past exclude any possibility of any other form. They reveal to believers in definitive terms who this god is and who this god is not. They deny any other form or forms.   How is this god revealed in the three Abrahamic religious traditions? Since their foundations are the same, He is revealed much the same way in each of them. He is revealed as a father. We are His children. We watch His every move. Like children, we want to be like Him. He is our mentor. Like a child observing his father, we look up to Him in awe. Like a father, He always remains in control. Like a father, He always has the last word. We want to be like Him. But, as much as we try, we find He will not let us. So we can only pretend to be like Him.   It does not end there. Real fathers die. They leave us. He does not. He is always there with us. He is alive within us. Like a living father He remains a living part of our lives. We find that we can not make decisions apart from Him.   So we say to ourselves: If He could instruct me to destroy the Infidel Amalekites who believe in other gods, I can destroy all those who believe in other gods.  If He could slew His enemies, I can destroy my enemies. If He can be angry with me — which He often is, I can be angry with others. If He can have retribution towards me, I can have retribution towards others. If He can punish me, I can punish others. If He can denigrate and destroy the Sodomites, I can denigrate and destroy those who are not heterosexual. If He could bring on a great flood and the end of His creation, and if He said He will do it again; I need only watch as a bystander as I now see once again the end of His creation in sight.   This brings us to the question: Is this image of god, GOD? Is it valid? Or, is GOD some other form? Is what we see before us in our Abrahamic religious belief not ultimate god reality but an aberration in the form of a god that is no more than an ancient and incomplete version of ultimate god reality? And, if it is an aberration, then is this early Sumerian/Hebraic image of God leading us astray? Is it turning us against each other? Is it leading our planet toward Armageddon? Has, in our modern world, the ancient Yahweh lost His relevance? Is He in His archaic anthropomorphic form holding each of us individually, as well as all of humanity, back from becoming what it can become?   There is an even greater question we must face: If He is an aberration, have we as a society the courage to break away from Him and find a new image, one that will allow us then to create a more equitable and humane society and an ecologically balanced and sustainable planet?